Merit Matters Blog - Microsoft Dynamics AX

Bad Processes Forced by ERP System?

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:48:53 -0400

We recently asked the CEO of a large multinational organization why they were changing their ERP system. “To improve our business processes,” he replied, stating one of the most widespread drivers companies have to change their ERP systems. As you evaluate your ERP system with regard to business processes you should first assess the level to which any bad business processes are forced on you by your ERP system; and then identify the number of disparate and sidebar systems users have created to work around your ERP. If you find significant process issues in these areas, a change to a modern ERP system that can help you differentiate your business may be beneficial to your organization.

The functionality and capabilities inherent in your ERP software have a big impact on your business processes. As you assess the effectiveness of your current system, you must first review your core business processes to determine if they enable maximum efficiency and productivity. If they do not, investigate whether the software system imposes constraints on your processes. Are your users saying “I do this because that’s the way the system makes me do it”?

When ERP systems were introduced 20 years ago, they were rigid in their functionality. They forced companies to conform business processes to the dictates of the software, or required them to significantly customize the software to meet their specific requirements. However, business processes evolve over time while the software remains static. This causes a disparity between the way the software was originally implemented and the new requirements of the business. This evolution continues until you get to the point that the processes in the system actually constrict the ability of users to efficiently run your business. In common with the CEO mentioned above, this is a major reason why your company might end up implementing a newer, innovative, and proactive ERP system.

New enterprise ERP software applications like Microsoft Dynamics AX offer flexible business processes based on best practices and process tools such as workflow. Workflow is the ability to set up and change process flows within the system. It includes many capabilities such as electronic routing
of documents, event notification, and automated processes based on triggers. Many ERP vendors offer flexible rules-based workflows
that allow businesses to create custom processes based on their operations. These workflows can be changed as their preferences and requirements evolve. In some of the more sophisticated systems, power users are even able to diagram and implement new workflows with drag-and-drop technology. Such flexibility allows the ERP system to evolve with changes in business processes and practices in your company and industry.

As you assess the effect of your current ERP software on your business processes, you should consider the following questions:

Do your current business processes decrease efficiency and productivity?
Are they in place to make up for inefficiencies in the ERP system?
Have they been dictated by the system because of lack of functionality?
Have your business requirements changed over the years making the reasons you selected your current system no longer valid?
Have users created many sidebar and workaround systems outside the ERP?

Implementation of a flexible ERP system like allows your company to take advantage of new capabilities, functionality, and fresh ideas. An implementation partner that understands business process optimization and is industry expert is an excellent resource for efficiently implementing the system and effectively setting up your business processes. Selection and implementation of a modern ERP system can reduce manual processes, eliminate redundancy, and reduce paper documentation giving your company the opportunity to:

Review all business processes in place and determine which are required, which can be modified, and which can be eliminated.
Identify and eliminate redundancy and manual data entry.
Standardize business processes across all departments.
Adopt the best practices available in new software to obtain greater efficiency over the current ways of doing business.
Make use of flexible workflow functionality to take advantage of automated business processes, document routing, events, and alerts.

All businesses at one time or another have to weigh the costs and benefits of retaining an older ERP system against the costs and benefits of selecting and implementing a new one. Legacy systems, although on older technology, provide companies a level of comfort—comfort that is likely at the sacrifice of increased relevant functionality and technology.

Business Intelligence (BI) in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:34:37 -0400

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 provides a flexible pre-built business intelligence (BI) solution for mid-market organizations. The use of built-in content—including Role Centers, analytic reports, and analysis cubes—eliminates the need to build a solution from the ground up, and therefore saves time and money. The Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 business intelligence solution can be configured and extended to suit your specific needs with the help of Microsoft Business Intelligence development tools.

The Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 business intelligence solution consists of the following built-in features:

Role Centers (dashboards). Thirty-two default home pages that pertain to the work needs of various user profiles in an organization.
Analysis cubes. Eleven analysis cubes that address the analytic requirements of the major functional areas within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012—including finance, supply chain, manufacturing, professional services, and business processes.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). More than 60 of the most commonly used KPIs that help users evaluate the success of business activities.
Analytic reports. More than 150 analytic reports that provide insight into business data.

The pre-built BI solution can be deployed when you implement Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 in your organization. A new intuitive, wizard-driven interface guides the user through deployment of the solution without requiring the user to have expert business intelligence skills.

By deploying the pre-built business intelligence solution as you implement Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, your organization can start using BI capabilities as soon as the new business functionality is operational.

Approval Process for Purchase Orders with Microsoft Dynamics AX

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:25:34 -0400

Maintaining and controlling corporate spending is more critical than ever. With Microsoft Dynamics AX, it has never been simpler to ensure that an organization changes and evolves the business processes and tasks that control the procure-to-pay processes.

The approval process for purchase orders adds automation and control to purchase order processes. It also delivers a high level of flexibility in the modeling processes with policies and workflows, including task and approval management. Purchase order history and versioning is built-in and is easily accessible, providing deep insight and supporting analysis and conscious decision making.

The approval process for purchase orders ensures that the business processes have been followed and that correct review and approval has been performed, which guarantees that the purchase orders created and confirmed to the vendors have been appropriately reviewed and approved.

Approval Process Configuration

The approval process for purchase orders within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 provides the flexibility to control and track changes within purchase order processes, and it enables control of the approval process by using the standard workflow framework.

The key areas supported by the approval process for purchase orders are:

Activation – The purchase order approval process can be activated on different levels:

For all purchase orders
For purchase orders for a specific vendors
For individual purchase orders

Workflow – The purchase order approval process uses the standard workflow framework to define activities (such as tasks, decisions, and approvals) that need to be carried out. It provides the ability to design business processes such as company approval processes and change management policies.Both the purchase order and purchase order line have been workflow-enabled, making it possible to configure and execute different activities per purchase order line based on line conditions and properties.
Versioning – The purchase order document is versioning-enabled with activation. A new document version is created upon approval of the purchase order, and versioning ensures a complete audit trail for the changes made to a confirmed purchase order.

The Purchase Order Approval Process

After a purchase order has been entered into the system, its approval status controls the actions that can be performed. An unapproved purchase order must be approved before the purchase order can be issued to the vendor and the purchase order status is confirmed. A purchase order must be confirmed before product receipt and invoices can be matched against the purchase order.

Approval state model:

Draft – The purchase order requester creates and makes changes to the purchase order when in Draft state.
In review – The requester submits the purchase order or the request for change to an approval workflow, which will change the state to In review. The policies and processes configured within the workflow will assign and execute tasks, decisions, and approvals needed for the specific purchase order or change request. If budget control is enabled, a budget check will be performed based on budget control policies, providing real-time analytics related to budget funds available.
Rejected – A purchase order that has been rejected by a workflow reviewer has the state of Rejected. The purchase order can be changed and resubmitted to workflow if desired.
Approved – A purchase order that has completed the approval process is considered Approved, and can now be issued to the vendor. Expected receipt transactions may be created when the order reaches Approved status.
Confirmed – Confirming the purchase order generates a purchase order confirmation document, which is an external document that may be provided to the vendor to notify them of the order. If budget control is enabled, the budget check is performed based on the budget control policies and budget reservations are established ensuring that planned expenditures do not exceed budget funds available. If encumbrance processing has been enabled, subledger journal entries are created for a purchase order when the purchase order is confirmed to reflect the consumption of budget funds on the balance sheet.
Finalized – Finalizing the purchase order requires all lines to be either canceled or invoiced. After a purchase order has been finalized, you can no longer change the purchase order. Finalize the purchase order to liquidate budget reservations and any encumbrance that is not yet relieved in general ledger.

The approval process for purchase orders features provided by Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 explicitly requires the approval of any request to change the purchase order, and the changes are not effective before approval. The feature also ensures that every change request is captured within a purchase order version, which allows for version comparison (header and lines) for analysis of changes between any two versions of the purchase order.

Microsoft Dynamics AX Helps Companies Maintain a Competitive Advantage

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:06:00 -0400

In an ever-changing global marketplace, companies are looking for every opportunity to gain a competitive advantage and simultaneously grow revenue, profits, and customer loyalty. Meanwhile, new regulatory requirements, competitive pressures brought on by an increasingly connected global economy, and technologies that “level the playing field” for companies of all sizes are making it more difficult to stay ahead of the competition. However, keep in mind that every challenge also represents an opportunity to beat out the competition.

ERP software - once considered a necessary commodity in the IT infrastructure - is now viewed as a strategic asset for organizations that want to be able to quickly adapt to change and accelerate business performance. Responding quickly to business needs can be the key to gaining and keeping a competitive edge. But inflexible IT systems can get in the way. An ERP system that is flexible and easy to use can play a critical role in helping your business achieve the agility it requires to compete and succeed.

Having one flexible, comprehensive business management solution can help you increase efficiency and reach by bringing together dispersed employees and operations, even when they operate in different languages and countries. It can also enable companies to gather fundamental business information from multiple departments or subsidiaries and analyze productivity, profitability, margins, and trends to help decision-makers understand current operations and resolve problems earlier and more easily.

By integrating business information throughout your supply chain, you can improve the flow of information and gain the insight you need to streamline operations and take advantage of changing conditions. The ability to define and manage items in multiple dimensions and track materials and goods throughout the product life cycle enhances inventory control and enables you to meet the information demands of customers and regulatory bodies. By increasing the flow of information internally and with trading partners, you can improve customer service, improve supply chain coordination, and take advantage of changing market conditions.

Microsoft Dynamics AX can strengthen your position in the marketplace and provide the backbone of an agile, flexible system that helps your business grow, adapt quickly to change, and take advantage of new business opportunities. Simple to use, straightforward to implement, and quick to adapt, Microsoft Dynamics AX can be delivered in the way that works best for your organization—via the cloud or on-premises. You can add staff, enter different geographies, launch new products, and pursue additional lines of business with the assurance that your IT system is there to support and help drive your strategic initiatives.

Innovative and Proactive Applications - Better, Faster, Smarter

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:07:39 -0400

Traditional business applications evolved as passive, backward-looking systems of record.

Microsoft Dynamics AX already changes that model today, introducing embedded, declarative workflow that brings an understanding of business process optimization into the application and helps guide users forward through their work. When this is combined with pervasive embedded business intelligence that transforms the data captured in the system into insight empowering better decisions, the system becomes a more active, forward looking partner for the people who drive a business toward success.

Microsoft Dynamics AX also delivers innovative application scenarios today. These include, for example, a solution in retail that offers out-of-the-box connection from point of sale to the headquarters business system, and that unifies web and brick and mortar commerce in a single view of customer and transactions; as well as a system for manufacturers that supports discrete, process and lean manufacturing models in a single system instance, with planning and costing capabilities that work across all three models.

This is only the beginning. Microsoft Dynamics AX will evolve to embed constraint optimization and machine learning to deliver even more advanced, forward-looking capability to Dynamic Businesses. For example, Microsoft is currently developing systems that combine transaction history with information about key factors like weather, traffic, local event calendars and demographics to optimize daily order quantities for a retailer, minimizing out of stock and waste to drive greater profitability.

The four IT megatrends of the next decade - “Big data,” social connectedness, cloud computing, and mobility - will present new opportunities for business applications insight, and open up a whole new range of possibilities for business. Modern business applications won’t just make individuals and organizations smarter, but will go beyond this to new directions and new levels of impact we are just beginning to imagine.

Driving impact has always required insight but most systems today only focus on retrospective views and data. They are passive, reactive, and backward looking. Modern business applications will at the onset be proactive. They will inform with insights and possible actions while constantly evolving to point to what comes next.

Data continues to grow exponentially as does the ability to derive meaning from it. Social commentary has accelerated the pace of the review cycle, with likes, links and tweets providing instant clues to success or failure. Capturing this data and being able to tap into its rich and valuable insight is a new requirement.

Microsoft Dynamics AX helps people not only integrate and understand these new data sets, but also get to better answers with suggested actions so they can continually improve business performance. It achieves this by enabling people to calculate and/or recalculate business possibilities in real time. By focusing on connected, forward-looking systems, we can allow people to access actionable information with greater speed and agility – enabling businesses to respond more efficiently, effectively and proactively to changing market conditions.

Microsoft Dynamics AX Demos

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:15:53 -0400

An added feature of our new Merit Solutions website is our Resources section which provides free access to a lot of great Microsoft Dynamics and Merit Solutions information! Today we wanted to highlight our Microsoft Dynamics AX Demos page.

Our demo lab contains a variety of demonstrations and tutorials so you can see for yourself how you can grow and transform your business with Microsoft Dynamics AX. And best of all, we don't require you to fill out any forms to view these videos! Demos include:

Microsoft Dynamics AX is the complete ERP solution for enterprises that provides a purpose-built foundation across numerous industries, along with comprehensive, core ERP functionality for financial, human resources and operations management. It empowers your people to anticipate and embrace change so your business can thrive. All of this is packaged in a single global solution giving you rapid time to value.

Technology to Differentiate Your Business

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 10:23:02 -0400

Merit Solutions believes that many organizations are at a point of profound transformation that won’t be sufficiently addressed via a patchwork of business solutions. That's why we are committed to helping your business be ready for what’s next with the most comprehensive range of integrated solutions today and the most complete vision for the future.

Empowering Your People

For your people, we offer an unparalleled range of integrated, connected solutions that help provide a seamless experience across people’s personal work lives. Our approach is to deliver solutions that are integrated by design across devices and services. From productivity, collaboration, and business apps, to devices and security, our goal is to deliver a connected experience that works together seamlessly and naturally, the way people expect it to work. The result? Get more done, faster, without limits.

We live in an amazing time for technology. At home, when we use our personal devices, we’ve become accustomed to a highly connected experience where all of our apps and information are at our fingertips and the experience has become highly intuitive. It’s easy to watch movies, read books, play games, and share photos and documents. We also know that people consume information in a different way depending on the device they are using—tablets, PCs, or even business whiteboards. In each case, the Microsoft business platform makes it easy to personalize the experience and get it just right. By choosing the Microsoft platform, your company's devices and applications will truly work together - and these connected devices will give you the same version of the truth regardless of the device you are using.

Maximizing IT Flexibility

Our IT customers are entering a new era - a new era for the way they manage and deploy applications and devices. Between the consumerization of IT and the move to the cloud, a lot of what IT provided, from deployment to systems integration, is being radically revised and simplified. Throughout this transformation, we are here to help our customers maximize the return on your IT existing investment and best position you for the future. Our goal is to enable people to use the devices they want to use in the places they want to work - while also enabling enterprises to protect corporate information.

At the same time, we know that you will have more than just Microsoft solutions in your business, and so we are experienced at building bridges across technology. We believe this builds choice, drives innovation, and creates opportunities.

Accelerating your Business

Finally, we’re committed to helping you maximize the return on your investments in Microsoft solutions. Whether that means saving money, growing revenue, attracting and retaining customers, or driving innovation.

In today’s business climate, people expect the technology they use at work to be as simple as the technology they use at home. Today’s technology is expanding the possibilities for connecting people and helping businesses be more proactive and dynamic to change. For example…

Across your business, we can help you foster a culture of innovation with a connected supply chain platform that embraces today’s social trends and makes it easier for people to communicate, whether through text, voice, or video.
We can also help you maximize business performance with technology that enables people to make smarter, faster decisions with democratized business analytics tools and the power of big data. And this same technology can also help you reduce costs.

In summary, Merit Solutions offers companies an unparalleled experience across today’s devices, while maximizing IT flexibility and providing the business platform and process optimization services that can truly accelerate your business.

Please comment below if you have any questions or comments as we’d certainly like to continue this conversation and find more ways that we can continue to help companies differentiate their business.

Microsoft Dynamics AX is a Next Generation ERP Solution

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:18:20 -0400

A while back we discussed some global business and IT trends that are slowly but steadily reshaping the ERP landscape. With our emerging economic climate, these trends are posing additional challenges for business and IT professionals who are struggling to improve profitability and retain IT agility.

Global market trends are creating the need for businesses to:

Achieve operational insight and better decision making across the organization with faster, easier, and more pervasive access to relevant business information.
Need for business agility to stay ahead of the competition and accelerate business growth.
Reducing the cost of doing business by optimizing processes and driving productivity.
Align business objectives with IT priorities and investments to ensure that IT systems and tools are enabling and supporting strategic business priorities and that they address changing business needs.

At the same time, shifting IT trends are creating the need to:

Increase ERP adoption and access to ERP data across a broader subset of the workforce.
Reduce IT operational costs by investing in systems that are more flexible and scalable, and simpler to configure, maintain, and upgrade.
Put solutions in place that enable broad business strategies, and that enable IT to respond quickly to specific line-of-business (LOB) requests and industry needs.

When you frame this discussion with the research conducted by Forrester in 2010 detailed in our article, Key Challenges Companies Face with ERP Solutions, you can see how the needs produced by market and IT trends are affecting customers’ expectations of their ERP application.

Today’s world is increasingly flattened by technology, global complexity and new global competition - making it critical for a business to be able to rapidly see and react to signals, threats and opportunities. Going one step further, in this world where the pace of business accelerates, imagine being able to anticipate rather than react to those signals. Success today and tomorrow increasingly depends on information insight and efficient business processes.

So what would the next generation of ERP look like? See for yourself!

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 BOGO Offer

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 11:20:28 -0400

For the Lotus F1 Team, acceleration is a critical component of their success. Now, for a limited time, Microsoft Dynamics AX can help you accelerate your business performance with the same thrill only a BOGO offer can deliver!

For a limited time only, buy one Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Enterprise CAL, and get one Functional CAL FREE.* And there is no maximum to the number of licenses you can buy with this special offer!

Boost your business performance with a lower investment! You can transform your business by delivering value faster. Give your team a competitive edge by adopting immediate business insight functionality for better decision-making. You can deploy one or several business scenarios, tackling your most urgent needs first, and add functionality when you're ready with "instant-on" capabilities.

Contact Merit Solutions today for more information on this promotion. Offer ends June 20, 2013!

Better Informed People Make Better Decisions

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:18:18 -0500

Today’s social connectedness, mobile devices, and growing opportunities for interaction “any time any place” have changed the way many live and work. People are increasingly dependent on connections across the global network—interlocked in this connected reality.

In order to gain the insight needed to make better decisions, organizations need an end-to-end business solution that integrates all areas of their business and provides managers - as well as individual team members and contributors - with the information they need to make the right decisions at the right time!

Modern business solutions like Microsoft Dynamics AX not only connect people inside and outside the organization, they also give them context and insight which drives better decisions and boosts productivity. An important focus of Microsoft Dynamics AX is to drive connections with people, with customers and with business partners across processes, data and the ecosystem in which organizations operate. This focus on connected organizations includes the vision of anywhere, in-context collaboration services that links people and companies to the right people in the right place, in the right context, at the right time, across multiple avenues of communications.

By implementing a fully integrated ERP system like Microsoft Dynamics AX - encompassing everything from sales and marketing to production and accounting - organizations can improve the accuracy of the information upon which decisions are based because each module of the software is tied together and information flows freely among them. Everyone from the top floor to the shop floor can have access to the business intelligence information they need to drive business success across the organization:

Keep current on changing business conditions - Accurately monitor current business activity, and compare it to historical activity and future plans to give people the contextual information they need to keep performance on track. Microsoft Dynamics AX delivers many integrated monitoring tools to help your people access the most relevant, accurate, and timely information about your business.
Gain insight into your business - It's not enough to gather accurate and timely data—people need powerful and easy-to-use analysis tools to help them understand context and trends. Microsoft Dynamics AX business intelligence functions provide people with the insight they need to take quick action and pursue opportunities.
Budget, forecast, and plan effectively - Microsoft Dynamics AX offers flexible planning tools to help you compare budgets, forecasts, and plans to actual performance. It also gives you the ability to update budgets and plans on the basis of new data and analyses to help your business stay competitive.

Microsoft Dynamics AX removes the impediments that generate friction within the organization and provides people with a broader array of insights and actions across internal and external connections. With greater transparency, agility, and insight, your people can make better, more informed decisions - enabling you to transform into a Dynamic Business.

Adapt Quickly - And Grow Your Business

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:34:32 -0500

You and your employees share a common aspiration - to grow your business. To reach this goal, you need a solution that can support changing demands along the way. Microsoft Dynamics AX delivers the flexibility you need to accommodate new business processes and scale as your business grows without significant increases to your original investment—or your payroll.

Conduct business internationally. Use international trade and multicurrency capabilities to maintain your general ledger in different currencies – enabling you to manage customer and vendor accounts in the appropriate currency.
Connect your remote and roaming employees. Empower your mobile workers with direct access to enterprise resource planning (ERP) data and local resources over the Internet using a rich RoleTailored interface—and get even more from your investments.
Choose the right solution for you. With flexible deployment options, you can choose the solution that works best for your business—and increase IT flexibility without increasing costs. Microsoft Dynamics AX supports both on-premises and Cloud ERP deployments.

With a Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP enterprise business platform, your people will have the innovative, flexible tools they need to be proactive and productive—keeping you ahead of the competition. As a result, your business can move forward instead of standing still.

Adding Dimensions to Columns in Financial Reports

nospam@example.com (DJ) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:14:53 -0500

Did you know that it is possible to create statements with financial dimensions expressed in different columns?

I recently discovered this interesting feature of Microsoft Dynamics AX while I was trying to help a customer with financial reporting focused on different financial dimensions. In our situation, the client is a medical institution with multiple clinicians on staff. The client needed statements calculated per each clinician so they can compare financial results during certain periods of time. For this client, Clinicians are custom made financial dimensions.

As in every other statement, the date intervals and raw definition have to be defined prior to creating the statement. Once defined, we have to generate financial statements and define their basic structures (General ledger>Setup>Financial statement>Financial statement). In the upper pane of the screenshot below, you can see that we give the statement a name and description - and then we can connect it to primary and secondary dimension sets (in this example, we only used primary dimension sets).

In the lower part of the screen, we can create columns that are going to show up on the statement we print out. In this client case, we set the account number in the first column and the account definition in the secondary column. Now, in our next three columns (or more), we can add our clinicians (or dimensions). For each of those columns we choose “current” as “Column type” and setup desired time intervals in “setup” tab.

After the statement structure is created and the columns that will present dimension data are defined, we can go ahead and add dimensions to them (General ledger>Reports>Transactions>Financial statement). The first tab is “Financial statement” tab, and under “Identification” we chose the financial statement we created before, and add to it the dimension set and row definition.

Under the “columns” tab we choose one of the columns we setup before (in General ledger>Setup>Financial statement>Financial statement). Click on the "Select" button in the upper right corner.

A new window will open. The upper pane is a graphical representation of tables and their connections. In lower pane we can add the desired dimensions to the chosen column (in our case that was one of clinicians). First we have to pick the “Field” (custom made dimension - Clinician) and then the “Criteria” (desired clinician to be represented in that column).

This is a great feature to compare and review different dimensions and it can be a great resource when creating complex financial reports.

Microsoft Dynamics AX Role Tailored User Interface Provides Insight and Productivity

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 14:29:41 -0500

Microsoft Dynamics AX provides a RoleTailored user interface which provides instant insight and productivity for your people.

The RoleTailored user interface spans the Microsoft Dynamics AX rich client and Enterprise Portal and helps drive productivity and business insight through its familiar user experience and connection with business processes. Microsoft Word and Excel®, familiar and powerful tools that workers already know and use, work bidirectionally with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 to enhance worker productivity. A flexible Help system provides added support when it is needed.

We believe that the key to helping businesses become more agile and productive in the global economy is to empower individual workers -- giving them tools that improve efficiency and enable them to focus on the highest-value work and a new generation of software is an important ingredient to make this happen. Our implementation of this is “RoleTailored productivity” and it is the key software strategy that enables the people-ready business by combining the worlds of business process automation and personal productivity.

Until now, organizations have had to deal with two distinct worlds of software applications: One involves the world of business process automation software, software that automates processes in areas like accounting, sales, and production. This software has proven to be very good at automating specific tasks, but it has proven to be rigid and hard to change. On the other side is the world of personal productivity software, the tools that we all use daily—Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook®, Microsoft Excel®, and the Web.

In-depth customer research has shown that increasing employee productivity helps drive overall company efficiency. So, how can business management software improve employee productivity? Our idea is to integrate the user experience of Microsoft Office with the user experience of business process applications in a way that is familiar and easy to use for the end user, and built around the way people in the company work - or “RoleTailored.” Software that’s targeted around the specific jobs people do can provide tremendous insight and help drive company-wide productivity. These integrated, flexible business management solutions enable people to make business decisions with greater confidence.

However, the value of a business system is not only about the ease of entering transactions, instead it is about turning those transactions into information, or business intelligence (BI), to help users make faster, better decisions. To do this, business intelligence must be an embedded part of the application, not a separate tool that requires users to take additional steps and switch contexts. Rich, embedded BI is at the core of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 with:

More than 30 Role Centers shipped out of the box, to provide the right BI for each user's job role.
11 SQL Analytics Server Cubes that provide data to Role Centers.
Key performance indicators that are role based and tailored to each process.
Over 800 out-of-the-box reports, all delivered through SQL® Server Reporting Services.
Rich interoperability with Microsoft Excel for outputting report and enabling analysis.
Interoperability with Microsoft PowerPivot for ad hoc slicing and dicing.
InfoParts providing in-context BI fully embedded throughout the Microsoft Dynamics AX user experience.

By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics AX brings together people, processes and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of the business, and helping drive business success.

Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP Boosts Productivity Through Usability

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:32:54 -0500

You may read this and think: productivity improvements? Again?

Yes, improved productivity seems to be on every ERP vendor’s checklist of benefits whenever a new product or feature is released. And that’s because inefficient and rigid systems continue to be a major pain for companies and organizations everywhere.

Inflexible systems overwhelm, overload, and frustrate people – the employees, managers, customers, vendors, and partners who are working hard to make things happen and grow their business. According to a report from Forrester, there is a deep-seated dissatisfaction with business applications because they are inflexible, don’t address processes that cross business functions, and don’t match the business’ requirements. (The Future of Enterprise Applications, Forrester 2007).

Indeed, a study from AMR Research (The Enterprise Planning Spending Report 2005-2006, AMR Research 2005) found that only 15% of employees are licensed to use their company’s ERP system and that 46% of licensed ERP seats go unused. And when people don’t use the system, business productivity declines, growth slows, and even business critical processes can be compromised. Because, it doesn’t matter if standard operating procedures are in place if no one in the organization can access, see or enforce them.

Therefore, it’s not surprising when Forrester concludes that “poorly designed user interfaces can profoundly affect the bottom line. The expenses associated with a bad UI, over the course of the application’s lifetime, may end up being many times the cost of the application itself.” (The Future of Enterprise Applications, Forrester 2007) The report continues on to explain the costly implications of a bad UI, including increased new user training times, a decrease in productivity and poor user adoption.

So why then is Microsoft Dynamics AX different? We claim improved business productivity, too, but does our solution deliver on this promise? And, if so how? What makes Microsoft Dynamics AX so special?

The answer is usability. The easier a software application is to use, the faster employees are able to adopt it and thereby enable the organization to reap the benefits the system provides. A study conducted by the consulting group, Keystone Strategy, found that companies who have successfully deployed IT capabilities throughout the organization – meaning that people are really using the software – have been able to profitably grow their revenues.

At the core of more agile, usable applications is the human experience, or what Forrester calls Design- for-People requirements.

“Design-for-people requirements place the businessperson’s work at the center of business applications’ human interface. The businessperson’s work is the organizing structure for a workplace into which we plug transactions, business processes, content, unified communications, social networking, and tools. Instead of people having to figure out how to apply collaboration tools to their jobs, ad hoc activities are integrated with structured work in these unitary, contextual workplaces.”

Microsoft Dynamics AX has been designed to meet “people-ready” requirements; specifically, to improve business productivity by improving usability and increasing the reach of the solution so a larger percentage of employees have access to the system.

Learning a new software application or having to learn many different ones can slow down productivity. If a new user is familiar with the application, learning and using new applications becomes much easier and faster. The user interface in Microsoft Dynamics AX has been changed to improve the user experience, the learning experience and leverage the successful design concepts from the popular applications most users spend time in on a daily basis: Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint, Windows, and Internet Explorer. Working in Microsoft Dynamics AX is like working in other Microsoft programs that most people are familiar with.

Yes, Microsoft Dynamics AX delivers on the promise of productivity – by offering unsurpassed usability, easier collaboration and communication, and comprehensive business insight capabilities. Microsoft Dynamics AX was designed with people in mind – making it easier for them to work, collaborate and make informed decisions more efficiently.

Microsoft Enables Connected Organizations

nospam@example.com (Josh Richards) — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:56:45 -0500

Modern business solutions not only connect people inside and outside the organization, they also give them context and insight which drives better decisions and boosts productivity. An important part of Microsoft’s mission is to drive connections with people, with customers and with business partners across processes, data and the ecosystem in which organizations operate. This commitment to connected organizations includes the vision of anywhere, in-context collaboration services that links people and companies to the right people in the right place, in the right context, at the right time, across multiple avenues of communications. Microsoft business solutions include everything from email to voice to video to presence to social – all designed with a singular goal of giving people and organizations more effective ways of:

Leveraging the exploding number of channels to connect with customers at the time and place of their choosing;
Creating an inclusive, listening organization by extending collaboration scenarios that exist internally to include customers;
Evolving from an organization that engages with individual customers to one that leverages the crowd to benefit the brand

Microsoft’s commitment to connected organizations is about removing the impediments that generate friction within the organization and providing people with a broader array of insights and actions across internal and external connections. With greater transparency, agility, and insight, people can make better, more informed decisions, and transform their organization into a Dynamic Business.

It is the impassioned individual equipped with the right tools that enables companies to stay ahead of the competition in this world of constant change. Microsoft transforms organizations into Dynamic Businesses that enable people to do their best work no matter where they are in the organization. We are already seeing the impact as customers make the transformation, and Microsoft is committed to delivering modern business solutions, built using the broad portfolio of Microsoft technology, with intentional simplicity as a core design element. The solutions are innovative, proactive business applications that help users work in new, more effective ways. Moreover, they deliver tools for a connected organization to drive data to insight to action any time anywhere, with the flexibility to deploy and consume business workloads and suites in a way that delivers on today’s needs while also providing the ultimate flexibility necessary to be ready for the future.